February 12-16, 2009

February 15, 2009, from Roberta

Thursday we took the 386 bus from Jerusalem to Masada. The route was partly along the west shore of the Dead Sea (or Salt Sea as it is called here) which divides Israel from Jordan. It is a long narrow blue body of water, which is 23%, salt and may be the lowest point on earth. We passed orchards of date palms growing in an area of desolate gold colored cliffs. On the west side of the highway are cliffs of Quibran , the location where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It’s about a 2 hour walk to the caves—we didn’t do it.

The bus stopped at the Ein Gedi Hostel, the Ein Gedi Kibbutz (wh/ also has a guesthouse) and the Ein Gedi Spa—that’s three different stops. We spoke to an 83 year old man who makes the trip to the Spa once a week. He brings a lunch. He likes the sulfur baths—stays in for 30 minutes although a sign tells him 15 minutes are the maximum. Then he gets out and rests on a lounge for a while. He repeats this cycle several times, has lunch, and gets the 4:30 bus back to Jerusalem.

The bus ride to Masada took one and a half-hours. We checked in at the hostel/guest house at the foot of Masada. The room wasn’t ready so we left luggage there and took lunch and water with us. We stopped at the museum wh/ is a very fine mixture of historical detail, artifacts, and statuary depicting life at Masada when it was Herod the Great’s palace and during the siege of 70 CE when families committed suicide rather than be captured by the Romans. There are 2 ways to get to the top, by funicular or by foot up a steep mountain. We took the funicular up but walked down the Snake Trail—all-700 steps and hilly trails. Temperature was temperate, about 70 degrees F—in summer it is very hot. Many areas have been excavated.

For a long time no one knew where Masada was. From sea level it looks like every other flat-topped mountain. A youth group hiked it in 1940. Archeologist Yigal Yadin worked there when he wasn’t working as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Excavations include two Herodian palaces, a synagogue, ritual bath, living quarters for common folk, a dove cote, step wells, storage rooms, many walls of fortification, and even more. The views of the Dead Sea and desert below are breath taking. You can see the stonewalled outlines of the eight Roman camps below, the siege wall and the ramp the Roman Army built to eventually capture the fortress from Jewish rebels around 74 CE. Rather than be captured by the Romans, the 954 rebels committed suicide. The Romanized-Jewish historian, Josephus Flavius, was with the Romans and wrote an account based on what he saw as well as interviews with two women and five children who did not commit suicide.

The next morning we caught the #384 bus to Arad, a city of 20,000 inhabitants, altitude 2000 feet around where the Judean and Negev Deserts meet. Arad has many industries ie cosmetics, towels, Motorola, etc. The high school has 1000 students. Arad also had a hostel; these are modern, scenic buildings; rooms sleep two to six people and each room has its own bathroom and shower. Breakfast is included (this is a wonderful big meal in Israel). Cost is around $100 for two people for the bed and breakfast. Fortunately we arrived early as registration closes from noon to 4pm—perhaps in hot weather this is a siesta time—it wasn’t clear.

Arad is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 21) as a Canaanite city which took Israelite prisoners and was then defeated by Moses and the ancient Israelites. There is an excavated Tel, which goes back 6000 years; the Canaanites abandoned it for 1500 years and then re-settled there around 2500 BCE. Part of the excavation includes a temple like the ones in Jerusalem and Shechem. King David ordered these destroyed so he could concentrate religious power in Jerusalem. However the one in Arad was not destroyed but buried under earth. We did not get to see it this trip; I would like to return but it’s not exactly part of a central route.

At the suggestion of the hostel hostess we walked to the Arad Glass Museum where the founding artist, Gidon Friedman, showed us how to view his work; his wife ran the gift shop. Works by other artists could also be seen. Mr. Friedman developed his own technique after travels where he saw glasswork, which he did not want to emulate. He spent five years building a kiln-like structure and developing his technique. In the bed of the kiln, he makes a mold of powder. He then puts sheet glass over the mold, closes and heats the kiln. The glass takes the shape of the mold. His work is very beautiful and interesting especially the depth effect he gets from glass. It had been a long walk to the Glass Museum; Mrs. Friedman got us a ride to central Arad with a local family—parents and 15-year-old daughter. One of the great things about small towns is that personal things like this happen.

Friday night we attended services at the Masorti synagogue—there were only thirteen people there. The Haredim were walking to their own synagogue dressed in large round black fur hats (Shtremels), fitted black satin coats to their knees, knee pants and long black socks. There is such variety in Israel, even in this small city in the middle of the desert.

The next day we went on a 4-wheel drive jeep tour of the desert with Oded Hamm, a desert guide and Werner’s cousin’s son. We, or rather he, drove along wadis (dry river beds—arroyos) and cross-country over rocky terrain. We saw many Bedouin encampments with sheep, goats, and camels grazing. Two teenage boys on a donkey were herding camels. This desert has hills, canyons, rocks and boulders. The land is colored golden in the distance. The Judean and Negev Deserts meet here.

An array of white snail shells indicated the burrow of a gerbil rodent. When it rains the snails come out to reproduce (they’re androgynous) and the rodents come out to feed. They leave their “tracks”.

Near a bush called “meluach” or salt plant lives another type of gerbil called the fat sand rat. The US Navy in Egypt studied the animal in a laboratory. The gerbils did not thrive on laboratory food—they developed diabetes and died. However they thrived when they fed on the salt plant (whose leaves do taste salty). Evidently this gerbil has unusual kidneys wh/ can handle the salt.

Instead of the bus to Tel Aviv, we got on a sherut, a 16-person van, to Tel Aviv—same price as a bus and non-stop. It took 1 hour 40 minutes. We caught the 405 to Jerusalem and were at the apartment in another hour.

Sat next to a young man from Darfor going from Arad to Tel Aviv. Israel
took him in and several thousand other Darfarians. He and his wife were expelled from their university in
Khartoum, Sudan, because of their origin. His wife, 2 children, parents,
and brothers live in Khartoum where they are probably safe. He sends
money to them each month but can't send directly from Israel so cuts a
deal with an Egyptian bank so it looks as if the money comes from Egypt.
His life must be very complicated.


February 15, 2009 from Stan. We met Rabbi Ephraim and Esther Zimand for dinner at Polly”s Restaurant on Bet Lechem and Yehuda Streets. A very nice fish/vegetarian kosher dinner. Polly’s is located next to a little hotel called Little House on Baka and is their breakfast room. Bet Lechem is a quaint street with many restaurants and miscellaneous shops.

February 16, 2009: Went to Begin Center for a lecture by former ambassador to USA , now professor, Moshe Arens, who spoke about his new book, “Flags Over the Ghetto” just published in Hebrew but soon to come out in English. He told the story of the role of the Betar movement in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Jabatinsky founded Betar in 1923 as a Zionist secular youth movement, which emphasized military training, love of Zion, alliyah, and self-defense. The history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was written by the socialist Mapai party which governed Israel during its first twenty years and also by Leon Uris” classic novel, “Mila 18”. These two histories ignored Betar (which was not socialist) and emphasized the role of the ZOB group led by Mordechai Anilewitz which fought independently of Betar in the Warsaw Ghetto. The ZOB emphasized ambushes and Betar favored defensive positions. Very young men and women led each group as all the senior people of both groups had escaped earlier to the East. In the major battle of April 19, 1943, Betar raised three Zionist flags, which became the flag of Israel in 1948, on the tallest building in the ghetto. The Nazis reported in the Nuremberg trial that they saw the three flags. However nothing about the flags was made part of the history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the two sources mentioned. All the Jews died except for a very few who escaped through the sewers. This is a heroic story that Arens’ book completes.
The lecture was sponsored by the family of Izchak (Elitsur) Friedman as the fourth annual lecture in a series. Elitsur”s story is worth telling. Born 1920 in Czechoslovakia, joined Betar as a teenager, and by 1938 was in a leadership position. When the Nazis arrived in 1938, he fled to Hungary where he began organizing the movement of Jews to Palestine—this was made easier because by age 18 he spoke 10 languages. In 1939 he led a large group of Jews on barges on the Danube toward the Black Sea. After a difficult winter, being delayed by the frozen river, they finally arrived at the Black Sea. They sailed on the Sakarya to British mandated Palestine; Jabotinski’s son Ari commanded the ship. Elitsur was arrested by the British and served six months in a British prison camp. After release he became an Etzel commander, leading many operations against the British. He was captured again by the British and tricked them by using a false name; in fact, the British arrested every Izchak Friedman in Palestine, and sent them all to prison or to Eritrea, Africa. They didn’t know the Izchak Friedman they wanted was already in one of their prisons under the name of the man they thought he was.

He was honored as being wanted by the Nazis as a Czech and British spy and a Zionist agent; by the Czechs and the Hungarians as a British spy and Zionist agent; and by the British as a Zionist agent. He escaped from the British prison in 1947. After the sinking of the Altalena, Elitsur served as battalion commander of the Etzel forces in Jerusalem.

After Israel’s independence, he decided to continue his formal education. He received a Ph D in chemistry and rose to become Chairman of the Chemistry Department and then Dean of the Engineering and Science at Pratt Institute of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. What an incredible life—fighting the Nazis, helping Jews escape successfully, fighting the British, and then switching careers to academic research and teaching in chemistry! His son, Jonathan, spoke about his father and the Betar Movement before Dr. Aren’s lecture

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